Comms Dealer

One in three smartphone users believe they will use at least five connected wearables beyond 2020, with smartphones turning into just screens, and wearables expected to perform most smartphone functions within five years.

In the new Ericsson ConsumerLab report, 'Wearable technology and the Internet of Things', six in 10 smartphone users state that wearables have uses beyond health and wellness.

Devices related to personal safety and security, such as panic buttons and personal locators, attract most interest.

The top five most wanted wearables across the five markets surveyed were a panic/SOS button (32%), a smartwatch (28%), wearable location trackers (27%), identity authenticators (25%), and a wearable water purifier (24%).

The report captured the opinions of 5,000 smartphone users (of which 2,500 are wearable users) in Brazil, China, South Korea, the UK and the US, representing the views of 280 million smartphone users globally.

In addition to the top five most wanted wearables, it shows consumers predict a booming wearables market beyond 2020, as well as that wearables might replace smartphones and will help consumers interact with physical things and objects in the IoT era.

Ownership of wearables among smartphone users in the surveyed markets has doubled in the past year. However, consumers predict it will take at least another year for the current generation of wearables to go mainstream.

A more diverse set of wearables, such as personal safety devices and smart garments, will go mainstream beyond 2020 - but when they do, a booming market can be expected. One in three smartphone users believe they will use at least five connected wearables beyond 2020.

The integration of smartphones into every aspect of daily life makes it hard to envisage a future without them. But with two in five (43%) smartphone users expecting wearables might replace smartphones, this could indeed happen - although it may take some time. As wearables get smarter and more independent in terms of factors such as connectivity, the smartphone screen may become less significant. Thirty-eight percent of smartphone users say wearables will be used to perform most smartphone functions within just five years.

Jasmeet Singh Sethi, Consumer Insight Expert, Ericsson ConsumerLab, said: "Early signs of detachment from smartphones are visible today with 40 percent of today's smartwatch users already interacting less with their smartphones."

Wearable technology will also accelerate the convergence of the digital and human worlds, by bringing people into the IoT.

While consumers are confident that wearable technology will help them interact with objects in their surroundings, they also say that this technology may not necessarily be devices.

60 percent believe that ingestible pills and chips under the skin will be commonly used in the next five years - not only to track vital health data, but also to unlock doors, authenticate transactions and identity, and to control objects.

Already today, 25 percent of smartwatch owners use their smartwatch to remotely control other digital devices at home, and 30 percent use voice search on their smartwatches.

Sing Sethi added: "Although consumers show greatest interest in devices related to safety, we also see an openness to wearable technology further away from today's generation. In five years time, walking around with an ingestible sensor, which tracks your body temperature and adjusts the thermostat setting automatically once you arrive home, may be a reality."

Vodafone has secured a ten year multi-million pound contract with EDF Energy to update the company's communications and IT infrastructure for all its generation business facilities in the UK, including nine offices, three data centres and 11 power stations.

The new Vodafone network will provide four times more bandwidth than currently available and will allow new services such as video conferencing and collaborative working.

New Wi-Fi capabilities will be established within all the facilities, allowing legacy paper-based systems to be replaced for the first time by tablets and other mobile devices.

The transformation of the existing infrastructure will result in a new digital platform being created that will support and enable the delivery of EDF Energy's IT strategy and 2020 vision for its generation business.

The platform will improve training systems, support regulatory compliance and give more flexibility in how employees are able to work.

Vodafone will also provide a dedicated on-site support team for EDF Energy to complement the existing in-house teams.

Underpinning the programme is a new commercial model between the two companies that eliminates future communications related capex requirements for the company's power stations across the duration of the contract.

Vodafone Group Enterprise chief executive Nick Jeffery said: "Bringing commercial certainty to the deal has allowed long term stability of investment for EDF Energy and makes planning a simpler process."

EDF Energy Head of Infrastructure & IT Operations Nigel Pettifer, added: "This long term agreement meets our objectives and helps to create a partnership that will minimise risk and maintain innovation."

Plantronics has agreed an out of court settlement with Executive Telecommunications (UK), trading as Incom Telecommunications based in Trafford Park, Manchester.

The settlement is in connection with claims relating to the sale of non-EU Plantronics products that had counterfeit packaging components.

Details of the settlement remain confidential but Plantronics confirmed that Incom cooperated with it in addressing these claims.

WatchGuard Technologies has acquired HawkEye G threat detection and response technology from Hexis Cyber Solutions, a division of KEYW.
 
"The combination of HawkEye G and WatchGuard will address the evolving threat landscape organisations face today by extending visibility from the perimeter to the end-point," said Prakash Panjwani, WatchGuard CEO.

"The acquisition aligns with our mission to deliver enterprise grade security that is easy to deploy and manage for small to mid-size organisations and distributed enterprises."

WatchGuard will make the new technology available to end users via its global network of MSSPs and channel resellers.
 

Outsourcery has partnered with Enghouse Interactive to extend its product range with the introduction of Contact Centre for Unified Communications for Skype for Business, offering customers a choice of communication method.

Real-time interactive call monitoring and call-back features help to reduce abandonment rates, queues and call times helping to boost overall customer satisfaction, said the firm.
 
Jon Seddon, Head of Product at Outsourcery, said: "Many contact centres can see the benefits of deploying Skype for Business but need to ensure that this can be combined with their need to ensure effective first call resolution, minimise call abandonment rates and maximise customer satisfaction.
 
"Contact Centre from Outsourcery enables teams to work from anywhere and achieve more by blending voice, email, web and fax interaction, all combined with integrated presence, Outdial, instant messaging and interactive voice response.

"This will deliver a full unified communication experience for both agent and customer."
 

NTA has rolled out a hosted telephony platform to resellers and dealers based on its 'HVNO' model, meaning that partners can have the service delivered as if it is their own.

Justin Blaine, Channel Sales Manager, commented: "Our partners have been asking for a model from us that enables them to have their branding, the flexibility to manage every move, add or change via the online portal and the ability to monitor every end point or SIP trunk.

"This is just like the MVNO model in the mobile world as it's all without any mention of us providing the service."

NTA also provides sales and engineering support, plus ongoing network monitoring of the hosted platforms which are housed in data centres.

NewVoiceMedia has reported international new business growth of 140% and a 50%-plus increase its customer base in FY 2016.

The company now serves more than 600 customers spanning 128 countries and six continents, including MobileIron, Siemens, RAC, Canadian Cancer Society, Vax, Quintessentially and Wowcher.

NewVoiceMedia's intelligent communications platform enables organisations to deliver a personalised customer service experience and drive a more effective sales team.

NewVoiceMedia also secured $30m in a new round of funding from new investor BGF Ventures and joined by existing investors BVP, Eden Ventures, Highland Capital Partners Europe, Salesforce Ventures and TCV.

Jonathan Gale, CEO of NewVoiceMedia, said: "We enjoyed another year of expansion throughout FY 2016. With 140% international growth, half our new business came from outside the UK, and we now serve more than 600 customers spanning 128 countries.

"Furthermore, our customer base increased by over 50% from the previous year and nearly half of new bookings were for our ContactWorld for Sales platform.

"We are focused on continuing to drive innovation that will revolutionise the way organisations connect with their customers and prospects worldwide."

 Westcon-Comstor has appointed Wayne Mason as Commercial and Marketing Director of the Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) Solutions Practice for the EMEA region.

Mason brings over 20 years of unified communications and distribution industry experience to the position.

He will be responsible for product management and solution marketing strategies that support the company's UCC business objectives in the high-growth collaboration space.

Joining from Imago ScanSource, Mason spent 12 years employed in multiple sales, product management and marketing roles, most recently as head of Group Marketing.

Previous to Imago he led the high-touch sales team at Tandberg.

Mason has experience in the UC and collaboration solutions area, having worked with a number of Westcon-Comstor vendors including Polycom, Avaya, Tely, Blue Jeans and others.

"Wayne brings invaluable expertise to Westcon-Comstor. His proven ability to develop, manage and lead fast-growth sales and marketing teams and build long-term profitable channel relationships will be a great asset to our organisation," said Guy Koster, Westcon-Comstor EMEA General Manager and Unified Communications and Collaboration Solutions Practice lead.

Mason added: "With the UCC space predicted to grow at a compound annual growth rate exceeding 20 percent over the coming five years, technology resellers have tremendous sales opportunities ahead."

Data security and download speeds are the top two barriers to a connected workforce according to a survey by Nexsan.

The study revealed that 98% of users need to work remotely or collaboratively, with nearly two thirds (61%) responding that they need to access company data on their own devices (BYOD).

While the majority of people (91%) felt they were permitted to access work files outside of the office, only 58% considered access to files away from the office to be 'private and secure'.

When it came to sharing files outside of the business only 3% believe file sharing to be private and secure.

22% of respondents said the main barrier to collaborative working was the length of time traditional storage or public cloud services take to download and upload work, with 18% believing that their storage was either inadequate for or hindering collaborative working.

Security was the second highest concern (17%) and a close third was concerns regarding version control (16%). Other barriers to a truly connected and mobile workforce were that companies did not have the facilities to file sync and share (FSS), FSS was too complicated, or remote access was prohibited entirely.

"The survey statistics reveal a picture of a workforce who need to access and share files remotely and across devices, yet who are being hindered by download speeds, lack of secure file sync and share facilities and storage systems that are too rigid," said Geraldine Osman, VP International Marketing, Nexsan.

24 Seven's national roaming SIM, Jump, which can switch between the UK's three biggest mobile networks, will be natively compatible with Sony's new Xperia X and Xperia XA devices.

The partnership sees the national roaming firm align with Sony to provide seamless compatibility for all existing Z series device owners, and the Sony Xperia E5.

David Samuel, MD and founder of 24 Seven, said: "We've established a purpose and place for 24 Seven in a competitive marketplace, and this partnership highlights the advantages of our offer.

"Thousands of our customers are now better equipped with tools that help them to do better than the competition.

"Mobile coverage has long been an emotive issue, and developing our offering in this way means we can continue to offer industry-leading prices, service and connectivity."